4 October 2014

Yet more Environment and Being Natural

I'm rather getting into The Environment ... while renewing old acquaintance with the quite remarkable art collections in Alnwick Castle, I found myself reading a little book hand-written by the first Duchess of Northumberland, one of the two Elizabeths who conveyed the honours of the ancient but extinct Percy family and its Earldom of Northumberland to the Smithsons in the middle of the eighteenth century. It details her own rules of life, including her self-imposed rules for washing. Apparently she did wash her hands every day, but once a month (sic) was good enough for her teeth, her feet, et cetera, and what she called a "bidet wash". And she was no peasant but a member of the most refined and genteel Georgian oligarchy.

How fascinating. It got me thinking about the use of water in our society. How much does it cost to purify water to the standard we expect in 'first world' countries? And to put taps into every human residence?Having expensively (I suspect) treated it and conveyed it, we individually use it to carry away not only what is delicately called 'body waste', but also the contents of our frequently voided bladders. We bath or shower at least once a day. Young women, I am led to believe, very commonly wash their hair (using electrical current to dry it) at least twice a day. The water which is thereby deposited into our sewers is full of the chemicals they have used to make their hair look the way that advertising and the media have instructed them is correct. I interpret television commercials to mean that shampoos used do in fact damage the hair, so that things called Conditioners have to be used to conceal the damage. If I'm getting all these details wrong, I'm sure someone will put me right.

How have we reached a situation in which hair so artificially treated, and bodies so obsessively washed (and caked with deodorants), are believed to be 'Natural'? And is it true that the contraceptive medicaments which our society pours into waste-water make fish develop the wrong gender characteristics? Why do we hear so little about the 'Environmental' costs and consequences of such a culture? Does it have anything to do with the imperatives of aggressive and greedy Capitalism?

5 comments:

Dear Father, Am I the only follower of your excellent blog whose enjoyment of it is spoiled by the intrusion of a faux-American voice chanting 'This is what you want; this is what you get'? Can something be done to stop it?

The most wasteful part of modern life is, of course, the vast amount of time, skill and resource dedicated on the one hand to eliminating unborn children, via abortion, and at the same time (and often in the same hospitals) to creating new ones vie IVF etc. Leaving aside the moral issues, just at the level of ecology and economy that is clearly madness!

Conditioner (weakly acidic) principally forestalls damage done to hair by (weakly alkali) shampoo. That's not to say there isn't plenty other stuff in either whose safety and environmental persistence we must rely on expert chemists to ascertain.

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. He is now incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. Nothing on this site is to be taken as representing the views of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, of its Ordinary, or of any part of it.